The contemporary art exhibition, one of the world’s most influential cultural events, has been overshadowed by geopolitical tensions linked to ongoing conflicts and international human rights disputes, triggering demonstrations outside national pavilions and deep divisions within the global art community.

Organizers said visitors attending the exhibition at Venice’s Giardini and Arsenale venues would instead vote for their preferred national pavilion and featured participant in the central exhibition, titled “In Minor Keys,” replacing the traditional jury-selected awards system.

The jury said its resignation was tied specifically to the participation of countries currently facing investigations by the International Criminal Court over alleged human rights abuses. Critics of the move argued that the decision was selective and politically inconsistent, with some artists and activists saying the United States should also have been scrutinized under similar standards.

British-Indian sculptor and artist Anish Kapoor criticized what he described as “the politics of hate and war,” reflecting broader tensions that have increasingly influenced major international cultural institutions.The Biennale’s main exhibition, “In Minor Keys,” had already been shaped by tragedy before its opening following the death in 2025 of curator Koyo Kouoh, whose vision for the event centered on themes of memory, identity and political fracture.

This year’s exhibition features participation from around 100 national pavilions, including several countries using the platform to address war, migration, colonialism and displacement through large-scale installations and multimedia works.

The controversy surrounding Israel’s and Russia’s inclusion reflects wider cultural disputes that have intensified across Europe and North America since the outbreak of wars in Ukraine and Gaza, where artists, museums and festivals have increasingly faced pressure over institutional partnerships, state representation and political neutrality.

Organizers said the audience-voted awards would be announced on the exhibition’s closing day on Nov. 22.

The 2026 edition of the Venice Biennale has opened with a mix of controversy, political debate and large-scale experimental installations, as artists across Venice use performance, sound, sculpture and archival work to address themes ranging from war and surveillance to technology and public memory.

Spread across the Giardini, Arsenale and dozens of satellite venues, this year’s biennale has drawn attention not only for its official exhibitions but also for the reactions they have provoked from governments, visitors and even local police.Among the most discussed works is the Austrian pavilion by Florentina Holzinger, whose immersive performance installation transformed the national pavilion into a chaotic post-apocalyptic environment.

The performance opened with Holzinger suspended upside down from the clappers of a large bell while performers moved through the space naked. One woman repeatedly drove a speedboat in circles inside the pavilion, while others balanced high above visitors or remained submerged in water tanks.The installation also incorporated functioning toilets connected to a filtration system intended to purify visitors’ urine and redirect it into a large water tank.

Nearby sections of the exhibition appeared deliberately engineered to resemble flooding or sewage failure, creating an atmosphere of collapse and instability. During one viewing, police officers entered the pavilion to question the nature of the performance after complaints or confusion from attendees.

The Austrian pavilion quickly became one of the central talking points of the biennale’s opening week, reinforcing Holzinger’s reputation for physically extreme and confrontational live art.Elsewhere in Venice, painter Sanya Kantarovsky presented “Basic Failure” inside the historic Palazzo Loredan.

Kantarovsky, born in Moscow before emigrating to the United States as a child, filled the palazzo’s ornate interiors with psychologically tense paintings that resemble still frames from unresolved narratives.

The exhibition pairs unsettling domestic imagery with the grandeur of Venetian interiors lined with books and Murano glass chandeliers. The show culminates in a detailed Murano glass sculpture of a young boy’s head, creating what visitors described as a dialogue between contemporary anxiety and historical opulence.

Political tensions surrounding this year’s biennale were particularly visible in the case of South African artist Gabrielle Goliath. Goliath had originally been expected to participate officially before South African authorities blocked the presentation of her work “Elegy”, describing it as divisive because it referenced a Palestinian poet.Despite the decision, Goliath proceeded with an independent presentation at the Chiesa di Sant’Antonin in collaboration with arts organisation Ibraaz.

The performance features classically trained female vocalists sustaining single notes until their voices fade before being replaced by another performer.Originally conceived in 2015, the work functions as a ritual mourning piece dedicated to women killed through racialised and sexualised violence. Visitors described the installation as one of the most emotionally direct works outside the biennale’s central exhibition.

At the Arsenale, American artist Carrie Schneider contributed one of the most visually expansive works in the main exhibition “In Minor Keys.” Schneider’s installation stretches across approximately 1.5 kilometres of photographic material derived from repeated stills of La Jetée by Chris Marker.The scale of the installation stood out inside the industrial spaces of the Arsenale, where several works struggled to compete with the architecture’s vast dimensions.

Other notable contributions included photographic archives from Francophone Africa by Akinbode Akinbiyi and documentary material addressing destruction and displacement in Gaza.British-Algerian artist Lydia Ourahmane presented one of the quieter but widely praised exhibitions at the Nicoletta Fiorucci Foundation. Her project “5 Works” incorporates materials and labour drawn entirely from Venice itself.

The installation includes a newly constructed wooden pier intended for future public use, a curtain made of Murano glass beads assembled by inmates from the Giudecca women’s prison, and a modified church lighting mechanism activated through the insertion of a one-euro coin.Questions surrounding surveillance and state power appear prominently in “Canicula,” a film exhibition at the Complesso dell’Ospedaletto.

Lebanese-British artist Lawrence Abu Hamdan contributed “450XL: the Story of a Fugitive Sound,” an investigation into allegations that Serbian authorities used sonic devices to disperse peaceful anti-government demonstrators.Installed inside the former hospital’s historic music room, the work combines witness testimony, sound analysis and multi-screen projections arranged like protest placards.

The war in Ukraine also remains a major presence at the biennale. The Ukrainian pavilion features a large concrete deer sculpture by Zhanna Kadyrova that was transported from Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine after difficult evacuation efforts during the conflict.Video footage documents the sculpture’s journey through Europe as refugees from Pokrovsk encounter the work in transit. Pokrovsk is now under Russian military control, giving the installation additional political and emotional weight.

Technology and artificial intelligence appear prominently inside the Chinese pavilion at the Arsenale, where artists explored the relationship between machines and creativity. Works include robotic calligraphy, digitally generated landscapes and interactive installations inspired by Chinese mythology and gaming culture.

One of the final installations in the pavilion is a field of “digital chairs” by Chinese designer Zhang Zhoujie, offering visitors a place to rest after navigating the biennale’s large-scale exhibitions.Away from official installations, one of the unexpected attractions of the opening week emerged outside the Polish pavilion, where a nesting gull drew crowds of confused visitors unsure whether the bird itself formed part of an artwork.

The gull, enclosed behind a temporary white fence, quickly became an informal symbol of the biennale’s blend of performance, ambiguity and public spectacle.

A concrete deer sculpture created for a public park in eastern Ukraine has become one of the central works of Ukraine’s national pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale, carrying with it the story of war, displacement and the destruction of cultural landscapes during Russia’s invasion.

The sculpture, created by Kyiv-based artist Zhanna Kadyrova, began its journey in Pokrovsk, a city in Ukraine’s Donetsk region that has since become engulfed by frontline fighting. Originally commissioned in 2018 as part of a public park regeneration project, the work was designed to replace a decommissioned Soviet Su-7 fighter-bomber that had stood on a plinth in the park as a military monument.

Kadyrova said the idea was to create something accessible and peaceful for residents rather than another symbol of force. The artist submerged most of the old plinth in soil and turf and placed the geometric deer on top, designed with sharp folded lines resembling origami.

Cast in concrete, the sculpture created a visual contrast between fragility and permanence.“It wasn’t something too conceptual,” Kadyrova said during the sculpture’s recent stop in Paris at the headquarters of UNESCO.

“I wanted to make something for local people that they would love, something understandable, something contemporary.”Over time, the deer became a recognized landmark in Pokrovsk, a city that had already been living under the shadow of conflict following the seizure of parts of Donetsk and Luhansk regions by Russian-backed separatists in 2014.

By mid-2024, however, Pokrovsk had moved closer to the center of active combat as Russia’s full-scale invasion intensified pressure across eastern Ukraine. According to Leonid Marushchak, a historian, educator and now co-curator of Ukraine’s pavilion in Venice, the city was rapidly emptying as artillery and drone attacks increased.

Marushchak was coordinating emergency evacuations of museum collections and cultural objects from frontline areas when he noticed the deer still standing in the park.“I saw the deer was still there and called Zhanna to ask if she agreed to evacuate it,” he said.

“The museum staff understood it had to be moved, but they had no practical way to do it.”Securing permission from local authorities proved difficult as civilian evacuation and military priorities dominated the city administration. Marushchak said he also proposed relocating a statue of Ukrainian composer Mykola Leontovych, known internationally for composing “Carol of the Bells,” to strengthen the case for action.

Permission was eventually granted. On Aug. 30, 2024, workers used angle grinders, drills, a crane and a flat-bed truck to detach the deer, which had been cast directly onto the structure, and move it out of the city.The removal was documented on film, which will also be shown at the Venice Biennale.

In interviews recorded during the evacuation, local residents described the park as one of the few remaining reminders of normal life before the war. Some residents preparing to leave permanently said they came to take final photographs of the site.At the time of writing, fighting continues around Pokrovsk, with large parts of the surrounding area heavily damaged.

Organizers of the Ukrainian pavilion say the sculpture may be one of the last surviving physical symbols of the city’s former public life.The Venice exhibition, titled Security Guarantees, uses the deer as its central image.

Curators say the title reflects the failure of international security assurances to prevent the destruction caused by Russia’s invasion and positions the sculpture as a metaphor for forced displacement.“We wanted to continue this journey as a metaphor, like so many Ukrainian refugees moving across Europe and the world,” Marushchak said.

Before arriving in Venice, the sculpture traveled by road through Warsaw, Prague, Vienna, Brussels and Paris. In each city, it was temporarily displayed in public spaces, often in prominent institutional or historic settings far removed from its original location in an industrial eastern Ukrainian town.

According to Kateryna Khimei, one of the public programme organizers accompanying the project, the deer has acquired new meaning for displaced residents from Pokrovsk and nearby communities.“The deer has become a symbol of hope and survival,” she said. “People come to touch it because it connects them to a place that no longer exists in the same way.”Khimei, whose own family left the region, said the sculpture now functions as a physical reference point for memory, especially as much of the city faces destruction.

“It’s important to speak not only about people who survived, but also about cultural objects that did not survive,” she said. “For many, this is the last surviving feature of their city.”The project arrives at a politically sensitive moment for the Biennale itself. This year, organizers invited Russia back to participate in its national pavilion after an absence since 2022. The decision has generated criticism in parts of the international art community and tension with Italian cultural officials.

Members of the Ukrainian team said they do not want their pavilion to be framed solely in opposition to Russia, but they argue that cultural representation cannot be separated from the wider consequences of the war.Ivanna Kozachenko, another curator of the public programme, said Russia’s return to the Biennale risks overshadowing broader discussions about cultural destruction in Ukraine.

“They destroyed so much cultural heritage in our country, in Syria and Chechnya, and now they are sending their culture to Venice,” she said. “Why should this happen?”In Paris, the deer was displayed beneath UNESCO’s flags with the Eiffel Tower visible behind it, a symbolic stop before its final transfer to Venice.

The timing was notable: Russia remains a UNESCO member state, while attacks on Ukrainian heritage sites continue. The day after the Paris event, a Russian drone strike hit central Lviv near the Bernardine monastery, part of the city’s UNESCO-listed historic center.At the Biennale, the deer will be installed near the entrance to the Giardini, the main exhibition grounds.

Rather than standing on solid ground, it will hang suspended from a crane, creating ambiguity over whether it is being placed into position or removed from it.For the curators, that uncertainty reflects the sculpture’s present condition: no longer belonging to the city it was built for, and not yet attached to any permanent future.

Art criticism, even when grounded in direct observation, often operates within conditions of uncertainty, where memory, perception and interpretation intersect in complex ways.

The act of witnessing an artwork does not necessarily produce clarity. Instead, as reflected in decades of exhibition-going and reviewing, impressions can become unstable over time, shaped as much by recollection and context as by the work itself.A painting such as Johannes Vermeer’s Woman Writing a Letter, With Her Maid (c.1670–71) illustrates this ambiguity.

The scene withholds key visual information, including the contents of the letter and the source of the maid’s attention. Yet the composition generates a sense of intimacy and narrative proximity. The viewer is required to construct meaning independently, filling gaps left deliberately unresolved.

This interpretive process underscores a broader condition in art criticism, where definitive readings remain elusive and subjective engagement becomes central.Large-scale exhibitions have historically contributed to shaping critical frameworks.

The Vermeer exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in 2023 is cited as a significant reference point, forming part of a longer continuum of influential shows. Earlier exhibitions, including a major Francisco Goya retrospective at London’s Royal Academy in 1963, an Édouard Manet exhibition at the Prado in 2003, and The Sacred Made Real at the National Gallery in 2010, demonstrate how institutional curation can influence both public reception and critical memory.

These exhibitions, widely documented and attended, contribute to an evolving narrative of art history that critics revisit over time.Recurring international exhibitions such as Documenta in Kassel and Manifesta across European cities, alongside events like the Venice Biennale and installations in spaces such as Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall, have expanded the scale and scope of contemporary art presentation.

Critics frequently encounter a saturation of visual experiences in these contexts, where the volume of exhibitions can blur individual impressions. This accumulation challenges the ability to maintain consistent evaluative criteria.Specific works and installations often remain embedded in memory due to their sensory or conceptual impact.

Installations such as Gregor Schneider’s Die Familie Schneider (2004), which recreated unsettling domestic environments, or Fiona Banner’s suspended jet installation at Tate Britain in 2010, exemplify immersive and disruptive approaches.

Similarly, Pipilotti Rist’s installation involving suspended garments and Roger Hiorns’ chemically altered interior space highlight the diversity of contemporary practice. These works are documented in exhibition records and critical reviews, reinforcing their place in recent art discourse.

The boundary between documentation and narrative is further complicated in projects like Emily Jacir’s Where We Come From (2001–03), which involved fulfilling everyday requests for Palestinians unable to travel. The work combined photographic evidence with performative elements, raising questions about authorship, access and representation.

Such projects illustrate how contemporary art can operate simultaneously as documentation and constructed narrative, complicating the critic’s role in verification and interpretation.Experiential installations have increasingly blurred distinctions between audience and artwork.

Projects such as Carsten Höller’s interactive environments, including overnight stays in gallery spaces, and temporary architectural transformations like the flooded sculpture deck at the Hayward Gallery, demonstrate a shift toward participatory engagement. These developments align with broader institutional trends toward immersive exhibition design, a phenomenon widely noted in museum programming over the past two decades.

Critical evaluation, however, remains constrained by time pressures and editorial demands. The requirement to assign ratings or definitive judgments within tight deadlines often contrasts with the evolving nature of perception. Critics acknowledge that some works reveal their significance gradually, while others lose impact upon reconsideration.

This temporal dimension complicates the notion of immediate critical authority.Certain exhibitions provide clearer interpretive pathways. Anni Albers’ textile works at Tate Modern and Richard Serra’s sculptures at the Grand Palais have been cited in critical literature as examples where material, scale and form communicate directly with viewers.

Similarly, Steve McQueen’s film Grenfell (2019), which documents the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire through aerial footage, has been widely discussed in critical and academic sources as an exercise in observational witnessing rather than interpretive commentary.

The evolution of critical perspective is also shaped by long-term engagement with artists. Paul Cézanne’s work, for example, has historically divided opinion among critics and audiences. Scholarly reassessment over decades has contributed to a broader appreciation of his approach to form and perception, though individual responses remain varied.

This reflects a broader pattern in art criticism, where initial resistance can give way to partial or conditional acceptance over time.The expansion of the global art market has further influenced critical practice. Increased financial investment, the rise of international galleries, and the growing prominence of art fairs have altered the ecosystem within which critics operate.

Reports by institutions such as Art Basel and UBS have documented the significant growth in global art sales over recent years, highlighting the commercial pressures that accompany cultural production. Despite these changes, the critic’s role remains distinct from market participation, focused on analysis rather than valuation.

Contemporary exhibition practices increasingly emphasize immersion and interactivity. Installations such as Tino Sehgal’s This Variation and Yayoi Kusama’s Infinity Rooms exemplify this trend, which has been widely documented in museum studies and curatorial literature.

These works prioritize sensory engagement and audience participation, reflecting broader shifts in how art is produced and consumed.At the same time, consistency and change among artists present ongoing challenges for evaluation. Some artists maintain a stable visual language, while others continuously alter their approach.

Figures such as Philippe Parreno, Ryan Gander and Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster have been noted in critical discourse for their ability to evolve while retaining identifiable conceptual frameworks. This dynamic complicates attempts to apply uniform criteria across different bodies of work.

Smaller-scale exhibitions, such as presentations of Georges Seurat’s seascapes at the Courtauld Gallery, demonstrate that even modest works can generate complex interpretive responses. These works, often characterized by subtle tonal variations and restrained composition, have been analyzed in art historical scholarship for their capacity to evoke psychological and atmospheric effects beyond their apparent simplicity.

The cumulative effect of decades of viewing, writing and revisiting exhibitions underscores the fluid nature of art criticism. Memory, context and repeated exposure all influence perception.

While artworks themselves remain materially unchanged, the frameworks through which they are understood continue to shift, shaped by personal experience and broader cultural developments.